Joy Luck Club example essay topic

"The Joy Luck Club": A Review of the Novel by Amy Tan Amy Tan's novel "The Joy Luck Club" is outwardly the story of friendship, trials, and tribulations. The story serves a much greater function than simple entertainment, however. It also provides an opportune window into a particular time in history, a time in which the feminist movement was just beginning to gain momentum and a time in which the concept of cultural diversity and its impact on even the most basic aspects of life was beginning to be better understood. Amy Tan's "The Joy Luck Club" can, in fact, be used to specifically illustrate the sociological construct of feminist theory.

Tan's novel is an account of eight women as their lives begin in 1949. It quickly becomes apparent, however, that the present lives of these women are integrally tied to what has occurred in the past. Four of these women were born in China but after experiencing many of the traumas of the raging war in China, manage to find their way to San Francisco. The remaining four women were also of Chinese descent but had been born in the United States. The link between the two groups was that of mother and daughter, four descended from four. Despite the mother daughter bond which exists between the four pairs of women depicted in "The Joy Luck Club", there are tremendous cultural disparities.

While the original four have been brought up in traditional Chinese culture, their daughters have experienced an intwine ment of Chinese and American culture. The contrast which results emphasizes many aspects of the concepts of feminism and, more specifically, the feminist theory in sociology. The so-called "Joy Luck Club" has its origin when the four Chinese immigrants, at the instigation of Suyuan Woo, reunite in San Francisco to eat, talk, and play Mah Jong. These women recognize that although their past has been at times unbearable, what is important now is the future. They recognize that: "To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable".

These women recognize that the future lies with their daughters, not with the atrocities they endured while in China. At the same time, however, they recognize that the ever tangled web of their past existence plays a role in shaping their present lives, and indeed the lives of their daughters. Despite their initial resistance to the ways of their mothers, the daughters will become the future members of "The Joy Luck Club", meeting in San Francisco some forty years after their mothers first met together as a means of breathing some happiness and joy into their sometimes bleak and desperate lives. From a feminist perspective Tan's novel allows us insight into the many societal expectations which so often bind a woman's behavior and even her accomplishments. What we see in the lives of the four mothers is an extremely rigid social hierarchy which determines such facets of their lives as who they marry and even such minor aspects of their lives as what foods they eat and clothing they wear. Women in the period of Chinese history portrayed in "The Joy Club" viewed largely as valueless, as being judged: "by their husband's belch" Female value and individuality was deemed non-existent.

In this time period of Chinese history females were not allowed to voice their thoughts or even to acknowledge the existence any thoughts that were considered inappropriate by the patriarchal society which so rigidly dominated every aspect of their lives. Despite the societal mores which previously bound even their thoughts, the mothers of "The Joy Club" do voice their thoughts. They tell their daughters of the tragedies and injustices of their past lives and in so doing they liberate those very daughters who already consider themselves liberated. These daughters learn of true inner strength, the strength which was not only their mothers but their own. Instead of finding themselves further and further removed from the lives of their mothers they find themselves integrally connected to those lives, not in a binding sense, however, but in a sense of internal resolve and strength. The strength the young women of "The Joy Club" find in the past become particularly important for Jing-mei Woo (also called June) in that her mother Suyuan Woo has died just before the beginning of "The Joy Club".

The three remaining matriarchs of "The Joy Club", however, step in to lead June on her path to inner awareness and strength as they relate to her mother. It is through them that she not only learns the secrets her mother had kept her entire life but also that she learns the meaning of what it is to be Chinese. Unfortunately, the relationship which initially exists between the daughters and the mothers in "The Joy Club" is more characterized by abrasion than by cohesion. Although each of the daughters obviously love their mother, they feel pressured by her constant interference in their lives. What each grows to appreciate, however, is the fact that their mother's "meddling" is really just a means of directing them towards the most effective path in life. The daughters ultimately learn to appreciate that they are not sources of constant disappointment for their mothers but instead sources of joy and pride.

The feminist overtones of "The Joy Club" are impossible to miss. It is replete with sexism and also such issues as racism, stereotyping, and ethnocentricity. The cry of Asian women all over the world that for centuries the society within which they lived had bound their feet but no longer would that society be allowed to bind their minds is eloquently voiced by Amy Tan. Tan voices another important component of the feminist sociological construct as well, however.

That component is hope. The characters in "The Joy Club" are not weighed down by their past, they are in fact uplifted by that past. Each of the daughter in "The Joy Club" learns that their are two sides to their Chinese heritage, a negative side and an extremely positive side. Without the sense of strength that this heritage had imparted to their mothers it is very possible that none of them would have reached the point they had in life. That strength, coupled with the American sense of self-worth and pride, would prove to be the most valuable asset available to both the matriarchs and the daughters of "The Joy Club". The most important lesson which "The Joy Club" provides the rest of us is that we should learn to know, and appreciate, our mothers for who they are and for the factors which made them that way before it is too late to do so.

Indeed, we must gain this understanding and appreciation in order to fully understand and appreciate ourselves.